


Safety lights.

by ariadnes_string



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-17
Updated: 2010-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes_string/pseuds/ariadnes_string
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wilson is ill; House worries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safety lights.

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: spoilers for S6 through 6.15, particularly for that episode, and 6.9.  
> a/n: This is a product the ongoing fandom bleed I've been having between Holmes/Watson and House/Wilson. Ever since Wilson bought House an organ in 6.15, I've been thinking they should play out their own version of the famous scene in ACD's _The Sign of Four_ in which Holmes lulls a weary Watson to sleep by playing his violin.

**Safety Lights**

It was dark. It was dark and something was after him. He was at the hospital, alone, all the lights were gone, and something was after him. And Wilson knew, knew with the burning clarity one sometimes has in dreams, that the only way to get away was to make a run for it down the stairs. But something worse lurked in the stairwell, he knew that too. And so he was frozen, fear pounding through him, waiting for the inevitable, horrible thing, whatever it was, to happen--

He woke up with a start, mouth dry and heart racing, head aching like lead weights were pressing against his skull. He lay still for a few moments, trying to convince himself he was safe, but he couldn't get back to sleep. His back hurt, and no matter how he positioned his head on the pillow, the pounding pulse of the dream echoed uncomfortably in his ears.

Cautiously, he tried sitting up, grimacing as the pain in his head shifted, slammed up against his sinuses. A tiny groan slipped out: what he'd tried hard to convince himself yesterday was allergies was turning out to be a nasty bug after all.

He levered himself to his feet, shuffled into the bathroom, joints aching, looking for water and Tylenol. But the water burned going down, and the Tylenol had apparently suffered the fate of all the OTC medications in the condo—spirited away to the shelf above the kitchen sink for House's easy access.

Groaning in earnest now, Wilson made his way toward the kitchen. To his surprise, the 2am dark was broken by the blue pool of light spilling out of the TV. House was sprawled on the couch, transfixed by the bodies undulating on the screen.

"Hey," Wilson said, a little hoarse, "you up?"

"Leg," House answered, eyes still on the porn, "you?"

"Headache," Wilson said, sitting down heavily next to him, quest for meds momentarily abandoned, "think I'm coming down with something."

At that, House did turn, face weirdly backlit by the TV, squinted at him and wrapped a practiced hand around his forehead.

"You have a fever," he said, the barest hint of accusation coloring his voice.

"Mmnn," Wilson murmured, not disagreeing. He _felt_ like he had a fever. He sank deeper into the cushions, eyes sliding shut, trying to get comfortable. But House was poking him, had turned the light on and the porn off, was saying something.

"Huh?' Wilson said vaguely, prying his eyes open again.

"Pain?" House asked, terse now, "dizziness?"

"What?" Wilson said, confused, "No." Then, with dawning comprehension, "No, no—it's nothing to do with the surgery—that was _months_ ago, anyway. It's just some bug."

But House was fixing him with his patented, everybody-lies expression, so Wilson sighed, submitting.

Wearing the stony face Wilson associated with concern, House pushed up Wilson's pajama top, probing along the newly-healed incision scar. His fingers were icy against Wilson's skin, but deft, experienced, extracting the information needed with a minimum of fuss. He palpitated the lymph nodes under Wilson's jaw, lingered a moment on the pulse point.

"Seems viral," he conceded grudgingly, "at the moment."

"Like I said." Wilson noted.

"You had a flu shot?"

"Yes, House," Wilson said wearily.

"H1N1?" House continued, as if he were sure Wilson had been deliberately throwing himself into the path of dangerous pathogens.

"I work around people with compromised immune systems every day—of course H1N1. There are other viruses out there, you know," he continued, patience fraying at the edges, "mild ones." Unfortunately, his point was undermined by an unexpected round of jagged coughs. They hurt, ripping through his throat, jarring his head. He had to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment.

When he opened them again, House was peering at him as if he were trying to decide exactly which rare type of bacterial pneumonia was incubating in Wilson's lungs.

Thankfully, though, whatever suspicions House was entertaining had the effect of making him more sympathetic than usual. He pushed himself up from the couch, saying, "I'll get you some meds."

Wilson was grateful—he was feeling less and less like moving around every minute. He listened to House banging cabinet doors and running water, and decided he hated getting older. Time was these things hadn't bothered him at all. He could remember getting home after back-to-back on call shifts, feeling a little light-headed, and being genuinely surprised to find he was running a triple-digit temperature. He'd worked all night without really noticing. Now everything seemed to hit him like a ton of bricks. Took forever to get over too.

House was back. He handed Wilson a glass of water and a couple of pills. When he'd swallowed them, House stuck a tympanic thermometer in his ear. _Was that in our kitchen too?_ Wilson thought, a little loopily, _is everything in our kitchen?_

The thermometer beeped, and House turned it so Wilson could see the reading. 101.2—pretty much what he would have guessed. Sick, but not all that sick. To House, of course, the glass, was half-empty.

"Not too bad," he said, "Yet. It goes much higher, and I'm taking you in. I doubt _your_ immune system is up to much at the moment."

"Uh-huh," Wilson said, noncommittally, no longer really listening. It was the same way House had been when Wilson had been recovering at home after the surgery. Every twinge, every niggle, had been a portent of a dangerous complication, a rare side-effect. He'd threatened to drag Wilson back to the hospital several times a day. Wilson hadn't grudged him his alarmism: worst-case scenarios were House's vocation as well as his profession, after all. He'd just stopped paying them much heed.

House was poking him again. "Okay," he said, "you're dosed up. Back to bed."

That brought him to a state of semi-alertness. "I'm good," he protested, the heart-racing dread of the nightmare still jangling his nerves.

House gave him a different look. The one that let Wilson know he could see through any façade of normalcy Wilson might try to erect, any pretense of being even-keeled. But he didn't press the issue. "Suit yourself," he shrugged, flipping the TV back on, "but no porn for you. You're overheated enough as it is."

A few clicks of the remote, and the writhing bodies were replaced by the Discovery channel—showing, in deference to the late hour and the fragile sensibilities of insomniacs, some kind documentary on sea turtles. House settled down to watch with a huff, and Wilson tried to focus on the green carapaced bodies gliding through a greener sea. He kept getting distracted by the patterns of light in the water, though. It wasn't like sunlight would do much good down there, he thought, against the chill weight of the ocean, its shadowy depths.

Another round of coughing hit him, leaving him shivering on the other side. When had it gotten so cold? Without thinking, he reached for the brown blanket that had always lived on the back of the old orange couch. He came up empty, of course; the decorators had banished it to the linen closet for the crime of shabbiness. He shivered again.

"You know," House said, with mocking brightness, "I hear there's a place with lots of blankets—comfy pillows too. Wait. What's it called?" House scrunched up his face in a parody of puzzlement, while Wilson tried not to rise to the bait. "Wait. It'll come to me. I know. Bed," he finished triumphantly.

He looked at Wilson expectantly. Expecting him to stop acting crazy and go to sleep. But Wilson was suddenly filled with the unreasonable conviction that all that stood between him and screaming night terrors were House's sarcasm and a few carefree Chelonians. He shook his head, hardly caring that he was acting like a petulant child.

House surveyed him appraisingly, as if petulance were a new symptom, and a worrying one at that. "Okay," he said, as if deciding to humor him, and used his cane this time to stand up. Wilson heard his uneven step dragging down the hall, cabinet doors creaking, muted rummaging.

Something soft and heavy thumped against his chest, and he blinked his eyes open to the threadbare familiarity of the old brown blanket. He hadn't realized his eyes had been closed.

"Yeah, you're not sleepy," House scoffed. He smacked Wilson's ankles lightly with his cane. "Come on, feet up."

Sensing defeat, Wilson did as he was told, stretched full-length on the couch, pulled the musty-smelling old blanket around his shoulders. The chill eased up immediately under its weight. Perhaps he would sleep after all.

House was moving around again, grunting a little as he sat down somewhere else, flipping something open.

"Oh no," Wilson moaned, "please don't play that thing now. Headache, remember?"

But all he got in return was a peremptory _ssshh_.

The music, when it came, was just as awful as he'd feared. House had turned the reverb way down, but the notes still seemed to bounce painfully around Wilson's skull. He couldn't quite follow what House was playing—couldn't decide if it was something he'd heard before, or something House was making up as he went along. He strained to catch a melody, a refrain, to no avail.

And yet, weirdly, the awfulness was strangely comforting. If he concentrated hard enough on the music, he could use it to block out all the other awfulnesses—the aches and pains, the lingering anxiety of the dream. It was like coming onto the interstate after trying to navigate unlit country roads for a long time—the halogen lights overhead, the strings of reflecting markers carving out the lanes, tracing out the safe route home. And thinking of that, following the path the music laid out, Wilson let himself roll gently into sleep.

_fin_   



End file.
